THE IBIS. 



THIRD SERIES. 



No. II. APRIL 1871. 



IX. — Notes on some of the Birds of the United States of Columbia. 

 By Claude W. Wyatt. 



(Plate V.) 

 Before commencing a list of these bircls^ I shall endeavour to 

 give the readers of ' The Ibis' some account of that part of the 

 United States of Columbia vi^hich forms their home, and the 

 route we followed. 



It had for a long time been my wish to visit South America, 

 and to see some of those birds which are only known to us in 

 England by our museums and books, alive in their native 

 forests. To carry out this wish, I left England towards the 

 close of the year 1869, and spent three months (January, Feb- 

 ruary, and March, 1870) in the United States of Columbia, a 

 country of great interest to the ornithologist, and one which 

 comprises many varieties of climate, from the intense heat of the 

 seething forest-clad valleys of the rivers Magdalena, Cauca, and 

 Atrato to the region of everlasting snow on the Andes. All our 

 time, with the exception of our journey up and down the Magda- 

 lena, was spent on the eastern Cordillera of the State of "San- 

 tander, between latitudes 6° 45' and 8° N., for the most part in 

 a delightful climate. At some altitudes heat and cold are both 

 unknown. 



When we arrived, the rainy season had been over for two 

 months, and most of the birds were either in, or fast assuming, 

 their best plumage. 



